I just started reading a thread on the subject of supported FLAC bitrates on Sonos. For some stupid reason, the forum system won't let me post a link here, so you'll have to copy and paste this if you want the reference.

forums.sonos.com/showthread.php?t=15259

Apart from a single "my understanding is..." reply, the OP received no useful information in that thread, before it degraded quickly to the usual throwing of <censored> going on for a few pages.

I've got the same question though: is there clear information available somewhere on the supported bitrates in FLAC format? I can't find anything reliable, certainly not in the technical specs of the Sonos Connect (which is what I'm using).

Oh, and since unfortunately it seems to be necessary: I have no interest in a renewed discussion on the benefits of hi-res formats, or lack thereof. I'd appreciate any well-founded input on the question at hand, though.

Thanks for your reply! Pity the Sonos doesn't do more than that, but that's what it is for now...

I was using the term bitrate to describe the combination of bits and frequency - seems to me that this is quite accurate. I know the term has been used and abused in many ways in the context of lossy compression... anyway, bits/khz was what I meant.

You can thank the spammers for that. This forum was being victimized by spammers. In response, a rather stern forum Nanny was enabled. While she is a little over the top, she saves us a lot of time keeping things neat. Some spam still gets through, but it would be worse without Nanny.

I just started reading a thread on the subject of supported FLAC bitrates on Sonos.

I've got the same question though: is there clear information available somewhere on the supported bitrates in FLAC format? I can't find anything reliable, certainly not in the technical specs of the Sonos Connect (which is what I'm using).

I think most people use the term bitrate to talk about the usage when playing the stored format. So when pulling audio off of a cd it's: 44,100 samples/second x 16 bits/sample x 2 = 1411200 bits/second or 1411.2 kbps

Whereas the max MP3 bitrate is 320 kbps.

The limits relevant to flac and Sonos are 16 bits/sample, and common sample rates: 48k, 44.1k, 32k, and so on as documented in the tech specs.

So for flac, normal usage makes this irrelevant, because most people just use flac to compress the files. Yes, there is a bitrate for flac playback, but it really almost never is important.

So, no "high resolution" bit-depths or sample rates are supported, like 24/96 or whatever, regardless of what format.

If your source files are 16 bit stereo, and a common (non-high-def) sample rate it will be fine. Anything you rip from CD to flac will playback just fine unless you're doing crazy stuff like re-sampling or bitrate interpolation as part of the encoding process. And if you know how and why you're doing that kind of thing, you shouldn't need help from anyone else.